suboffices in Frankfurt, Vienna, Athens, London, Moscow, and Nairobi. The percentage of time each office devotes to refugee processing depends on the refugee workload as well as the staffing pattern and priorities within the office. Permanent overseas staff is, of course, augmented by temporary duty personnel from INS' stateside offices, as needed.

This year, we have successfully relied on temporary details to meet major processing demands represented by Soviet refugee flows and the Orderly Departure Program in Vietnam. Using a series of temporary duty personnel in addition to permanent staff in Rome, INS processed more than 44,000 Soviet refugees for travel to the United States during FY 1990. In Moscow, the Service has also relied on details to increase our staff there by six interviewing positions. As of mid-August, INS cumulative statistics for FY 1990 show that approximately 38,000 Soviets have been interviewed in Moscow, with nearly 22,500 granted refugee status.

In Bangkok, up to five temporary duty personnel have been used to supplement district staff to meet INS processing responsibilities under the Orderly Departure Program (ODP). Each month, 6,000 Vietnamese are processed through the ODP; 70 percent of these ODP interviews are refugee adjudications and are the responsibility of INS. As of October 1, 1990, ODP monthly interviews will be increased to 7,500 each month.

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New Asylum Regulations and FY 1991 Implementation

Shifting to INS' domestic responsibilities under the U.S. refugee program, I am particularly pleased to report to you that new asylum regulations were signed by the Attorney General and published on July 27, 1990. These regulations authorize creation of a corps of specialized adjudicators under the direct supervision of INS Washington Headquarters who will devote 100 percent of their time to the sensitive task of deciding asylum claims. These adjudicators will be based in 7 cities around the country, and will make circuit rides to other sites as workload requires.

On October 1, 1990, INS began to phase in this new operation, with full implementation expected by April 1991. In preparing for this October 1 implementation, the Service trained more than 100 INS officers in a two week course at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Facility in Glynco, Georgia. The course included instruction in U.S. law, interviewing techniques, country conditions, and international and asylum issues. Instructors for our asylum training came from within and outside the U.S. Government, including representatives from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The new asylum regulations also call for the establishment of a documentation center to provide information on conditions in refugee producing countries. The training and the documentation

center will enhance

the

professionalism

of both asylum

adjudications and the interviews of refugee applicants.

Since early 1989, in anticipation of the of new asylum regulations, the Service has undertaken an intensive effort to improve the training of asylum and refugee adjudicators through the creation of a comprehensive training syllabus and the organization of formal training courses. These materials

as

emphasize the unique nature of refugee and asylum adjudications a process different from other INS examinations or inspections. Special attention is given to the need to elicit information and explore all avenues of inquiry in order to fully develop potentially approvable claims.

INS' Role and Involvement in Refugee & Asylum Affairs

The role of the INS within the U.S. refugee program is an integral part of the international response to the plight of 15 million refugees worldwide. The priorities within the community of nations are, respectively, the voluntary repatriation of refugees to their homelands; local resettlement of refugees in countries of first asylum if repatriation is not possible; and, resettlement in "third countries," such as the United States, if other solutions are unavailable. It is to this last group, persons who have no hope of repatriation or regional solutions, that the U.S. refugee resettlement program responds.

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Within the U.S. refugee program, the INS is responsible for determining eligibility under three statutory avenues of

application:

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the U.S. asylum program provided for in Section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), for persons seeking asylum in the United States or at a U.S. port of entry;

in

the U.S. refugee resettlement admissions program, defined sections 101(a) (42) and 207 of the INA for persons outside the United States and outside their countries of origin who are (a)

"refugees" under the Immigration and Nationality Act; (b) identified as needing third country resettlement; and, (c) qualified according to U.S priorities and ceilings.

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exceptional refugee admissions, based on a Presidential determination, pursuant to section 101(a) (42) (B) of the INA, made available to certain specified groups of persons still within their countries of origin.

INS adjudicates these refugee and asylum applicants on a case-by-case basis according to the statutory definition of refugee. Based on the 1967 United Nations Protocol Relating to

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the Status of Refugees as

incorporated by Congress into the

Refugee Act of 1980, this standard requires an applicant for

"well-founded

refugee status to demonstrate a fear of persecution" on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. Within the context of our international refugee responsibilities, INS adjudicates refugee applications based on statutory requirements, along with an assessment of conditions in an applicant's country of origin. An INS officer considers these factors, along with information developed through a personal interview with the applicant.

Since January 1990, INS has conducted certain refugee adjudications pursuant to the Lautenberg Amendment, which passed as part of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act for FY 1990. That amendment created categories of Soviets and Indochinese who can qualify for refugee status based on an assertion of fear of persecution and an assertion of a credible basis for concern. Persons who may apply pursuant to this legislation include Soviet Jews, Soviet Evangelicals, Ukrainian Catholics and Ukrainian Orthodox, as well as nationals of Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.

Early this year, in an effort to ensure that INS overseas offices were aware of the importance of the Lautenberg Amendment, I went to Moscow and Deputy Commissioner Ricardo Inzunza traveled to Bangkok to personally initiate its implementation. As part of

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